


Roof Runners

by aflyingcontradiction



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Brief reference to forced prostitution, Children, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 16:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12369828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflyingcontradiction/pseuds/aflyingcontradiction
Summary: Josie knew that she would have to leave the orphanage one of these days. But when the mysterious Captain Glass takes her to the mountainside city of Scalbourne, will it spell doom for the young girl or will she find what she has been missing?





	1. The mysterious visitor

There was pandemonium in the girls’ dormitory of the orphanage.

“Did you see them? What did they look like? They’re looking to adopt, right? Right?”

“Oh, no, I’ve got a huge stain on my shirt!” 

“Who cares about your shirt, Abbie, I can’t find my hair tie. Where’s my bloody hair tie? I can’t go out there like this! I look like a demon! If I see one of you with my hair tie, I swear I will rip your fucking hair out by the roots!”

“You keep swearing like that and no one’s ever going to adopt you!”

“Oh shut the fuck up.”

Josie was sitting on her bed pulling up her stockings. She didn’t know what bloody Missy was fussing about anyway. None of them were going to be adopted. As long as there were bouncing babies downstairs in the nursery, none of them stood a snowball’s chance in hell.  
Prospective parents barely ever looked at any of the dormitory kids, not even the little ones with their wide tearful eyes and cute little pigtails, nevermind their own gangly teenage selves. None of them were ever going to have families!

“Oh, I wish I knew what they’re like,” said tiny Aphra, pulling nervously on her skirt. “Do the boys know anything?”

“No idea, go ask them.”

“But we’re not allowed to leave the dormitory!” whined Aphra.

“I’ll go ask,” said Maud and before anyone could stop her she poked her head out of the girls’ dormitory to check that the hallway was clear, then disappeared from the room.

The moment she was gone, silence fell. It was as if all the girls were holding their breath. A couple of minutes later the door was opened a crack and Maud slipped back through. The frown on her face boded ill.

“What? What is it?” asked Josie.

“It’s a tradeswoman.” 

A groan of disappointment ran through the room, punctuated by Missy’s loud “AW BALLS!” She chucked the red hair tie she had only just rediscovered into a corner where one of the little girls quickly picked it up and pocketed it.

“Are you sure?” asked Aphra. “Maybe they’re wrong. Maybe she’s a mum! A mum that works a trade!”

“She’s not a mum. Theo says he heard Matron and her talk about work and debt repayment and stuff. He couldn’t make out any more than that but she said she’s dressed real fancy.”

“Fancy?” Minnie, the oldest of the bunch practically screamed. “Oh no, she’s a madam, isn’t she?” 

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” said Abbie. “Maybe she’s just very successful in her trade.”

“But who’s ever heard of a normal tradeswoman who dresses fancy? She’s a madam, I’m telling you.”

Minnie was right to worry. At fifteen, she had already outgrown the awkwardness of the younger girls and she was well overdue for leaving the orphanage.

“I’m not coming downstairs. Tell Matron I’m ill.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Josie snapped. “Matron knows you’re not ill, she’ll drag you downstairs by your ear and sell you off just for making trouble.”

“Oh, Josie, what do I do? Please, could you check? Just have a quick look?”

Josie was surprised nobody had asked her before. Maybe it had something to do with her nearly falling off the window ledge and plummeting to her death the last time she had snuck over to the Matron’s office. But after all, that had only happened once. She’d be more careful this time.

“You’re lucky I like you,” Josie shouted as she climbed out the window. 

\---------------------------------------

The window ledge was barely wide enough for one of Josie’s feet. She had to shuffle carefully along until she reached the gap between the window of the dormitory and the next ledge over. Cautiously, Josie positioned her feet, bent her knees and jumped. With a slight wobble, she landed and quickly threw out her arms to stabilise herself against the wall. A perfect landing! Ha! She hadn’t lost her edge after all!

Inch by inch she crept forward, careful not to misplace a foot and lose her balance. Soon she was close enough to the office window to stretch her neck and peek through it.

The Matron wearing her usual grey suit was sitting at her huge oak desk, opposite the visitor, an imposing woman with closely cropped grey hair in what looked like a red uniform embroidered with golden thread. An expensive-looking black cane with a silver-coloured knob on top was leaning against her chair. 

Theo had been right: Real fancy! But if she was a madam, she was the weirdest-looking madam Josie had ever seen. She looked almost like an army general in those clothes. But the military didn’t recruit in orphanages. And Josie had seen plenty of tradespeople come and drag away a suitable child with them, even a sailor once who had been looking for a cabin boy, but none of them had ever worn a uniform like this. What was she? 

As Josie watched the Matron and the visitor talk, she wished she had little Elias with her who was deaf and could read lips like a champion. But Elias, like all the other kids, would never have dared to climb to the Matron’s office window. 

Josie pressed her ear to the window, hoping to hear something, anything, through the thick glass. Nothing. Disappointed, she turned her eyes back to the window - and flinched hard enough she very nearly lost her balance. The uniformed woman was staring right at her!

Shit, shit, shit! Josie yanked her head away from the window and raced as fast as she dared back to the girls’ dormitory.

She burst through the open window straight into Minnie’s arms.

“And?”

“Not a madam, but I’m in trouble.”

“Wait, what hap-”

“CHILDREN!” the Matron’s shrill voice echoed through the building.

For a moment, Josie considered running with Minnie’s stupid idea of faking an illness but of course she herself had pointed out that that would come back to bite her in the ass. She had to go down with the others and hope against hope that everything would be fine, that the Matron hadn’t seen her, that the visitor couldn’t recognise her among all the others…

\---------------------------------------

Minutes later the children were lined up by size down in the entrance hall, twenty-one boys on one side, twenty-four girls on the other, while the Matron was advertising their merits. The nursery kids hadn’t been brought into the hall. They were useless to this woman.

“And David here is a very hard worker and very low-maintenance, he never complains. But if you’re looking for a girl, Minnie over here is a very fast runner and …”

“If I may stop you for a moment, ma’am, I believe I already know what I am looking for,” said the visitor. 

And to Josie’s horror, she turned and strode straight toward Josie, tapping her cane on the floor with each step. Clack - clack - clack.

“You!”

Josie gulped.

“Oh yes, that is Josephine. She is thirteen now, has been with us since she was six. But don’t worry about her debt, I’m sure she will work it off in no time. A very diligent girl, very obedient, too.”

If she hadn’t been so terrified, Josie would have laughed. Hadn’t the Matron called her a lazy, insubordinate waste of good food just two days ago?

“Can you read, girl?”

“They all can. We provide a very good edu-”

“Hush! I’m talking to the girl.” 

The Matron fell silent before she could tell more lies. 

“Y-yeah, I can read, ma’am,” Josie stammered before she’d even fully thought it through. Maybe she ought to have lied and just taken the beating from the Matron later.

“Good. And that’s ‘captain’.” 

So maybe she was military? Or a sailor? Josie didn’t really care, she just wanted her to move onto the next person. Sure, the orphanage wasn’t exactly homey, but at least all they made the kids do here was some cleaning and cooking and garden work, the occasional mending of their clothes so they wouldn’t look like scarecrows when the visitors came, nothing all too strenuous. 

She’d heard of kids worked to death by tradespeople! Besides, she knew what to expect of the Matron and her underlings, how to sneak food out of the kitchen and where to hide it, what punishments there were and how to avoid them, at least some of the time. She didn’t know anything about this “captain”. 

Silently she prayed that the woman would move on, but she just stared at Josie, letting her eyes wander up and down Josie’s lanky frame.

Finally, she turned to the Matron: “I want her.”

“Oh.” The Matron couldn’t hide her surprise, though she tried to cover it up: “Oh, that is a very good decision, Captain Glass. Josephine. Go grab your things. The rest of you, go play!”

None of them went to play. They would have been punished if they had. Instead, they dispersed to wherever work needed to be done right now - the kitchens, the gardens, the laundry room. Every once in a while one of them patted Josie’s shoulder in passing, muttered a “Good luck” or “You’ll be fine” or even a “Write if you can”, but she knew their heart wasn’t in it. To them she was already gone, just one of the many faces to pass in and out of the orphanage and disappear without a trace. 

It took Josie half a minute to grab her things - a tattered coat, a hat, an old brown hair tie. She would have loved to stay in the dormitory, hide under a bed or something, but she knew she was just delaying the inevitable.

With a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, she crept down the stairs, at the bottom of which the Matron and the captain were discussing how to repay her debt to the orphanage.

“I expect she ought to have repaid it all in about seven or eight years, if she’s as hard a worker as you claim,” she heard the captain say.

Seven or eight years of most likely back-breaking labour doing - whatever it was this captain needed her to do. And then probably some to repay any debts she would’ve accrued with the captain by that point. Josie had to fight down the impulse to run. Where would she have run to anyway? It wasn’t like she had anywhere to go.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, the Matron gave her a big hug, the first one she had ever gotten from her: “We will miss you, Josephine. Do us proud.”  
Josie didn’t answer.


	2. Scalbourne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josie sees the marvel that is Scalbourne and meets her fellow messengers.

A couple of minutes later the captain and Josie were sitting in a coach speeding away from what had been Josie’s home for seven years. The orphanage continued to grow smaller and smaller in the distance until they drove around a bend and Josie couldn’t see it anymore.

It wasn’t until now that Josie turned toward Captain Glass. The grey-haired woman was looking out the window on her side and didn’t seem to notice, so Josie continued to stare for a while. Up close she could tell that the embroidery on the captain’s uniform formed three Rs. What did they mean?

“So, Josephine.”

Josie flinched hard as the captain turned to her: “Yes, captain.”

“Have you ever been to Scalbourne?”

Josie considered the question for a moment. She remembered that she had lived in a tiny town, some hours away from the orphanage, before her mother had died. And she didn’t think they had ever visited the mountainside city. Some of the kids at the orphanage had come from there, though, and claimed you never forgot the dizzying sight of first entering Scalbourne, so Josie would have remembered, for sure.

“No, I haven’t.”

“You will join my messenger company there. But I assume you don’t know what that means.”

Josie shook her head, just to be on the safe side. Sure, she knew what messengers were, but judging from Captain Glass’s tone of voice there was more to it.

“No matter. It won’t be easy at the start, but I’m sure with time you will make a perfect fit.”

Josie wasn’t sure whether she was imagining the veiled ‘or else’.

More to herself than to Josie, the captain added: “I’ll have the twins show you the ropes tomorrow morning.”

Silence fell inside the coach, but not in Josie’s mind where thoughts were tumbling wildly over each other. Being a messenger didn’t sound so bad. But then what was ‘it won’t be easy at the start’ all about? What did it mean to be a messenger in Scalbourne? None of the Scalbourne children had ever mentioned anything like that! 

Some hours later all the thoughts were blown from Josie’s head. The coach had rounded a bend and there it was. Scalbourne. Josie’s mouth fell open. 

Next to the road, a huge rock wall stretched up all the way into the heavens. Jutting out of the rock wall, there were buildings - huge ones, tiny ones, some hewn directly into the rock, others sticking out precariously, looking like they were about to fall. Josie couldn’t tell how they were even attached! 

Then she noticed that below the wide main road, the rock wall continued with more houses, hundreds and hundreds of them. Bridges, ropes and cables of varying sizes were stretched between windows and doors. Booths lit with flickering gas lanterns were slowly being dragged up and down the rock sides on steel cables. Every once in a while they stopped, a gaggle of people got out and another gaggle took their place. In the fading light of dusk they looked like shadows. Josie couldn’t figure out how any of this worked. She had never seen anything like it before.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” 

Josie turned to the captain in surprise. A slight smile was playing around the woman’s lips. Even though the smile disappeared the moment the captain noticed Josie was watching her, it was a relief to know she smiled at all.

“We’re here.” 

The carriage had stopped in front of a flight of stone steps leading from the road up to one of the protruding houses balanced in a hollow, looking too unstable to be allowed. 

Captain Glass stepped out of the carriage. Josie hopped down after her, watched as she dropped some coins into the driver’s waiting hand, then turned to Josie with a: “Come!”

She placed a hand on Josie’s back, making it impossible not to follow her. Not that Josie would have tried. She didn’t fancy her chances as a street kid in an unknown city and if the captain caught her - well, that cane looked like it hurt.

Together they entered the house. Once through the door, Captain Glass lit a couple of oil lamps in the hallway, but they didn’t change much: The place still looked dark and oppressive, dusty and tight. 

At the end of the hallway there was a door. This was where Josie was being pushed. She could hear commotion behind the door - and voices.

“Captain’s coming! Captain’s coming!”

The captain opened the door. The room they now entered was full of hammocks slung at different heights going up from just above the floor to just below the ceiling. Josie tried to see how many there were but the back of the room was almost completely dark. She thought she could see at least twenty, though. 

A whole lot of kids were standing at attention on either side of the room. The oldest were probably nearly of age, the youngest were maybe seven or eight years old. All of them were wearing red uniforms with three Rs on their chest, but the uniforms looked far less fancy than the captain’s. About as shabby as Josie’s own clothes, really. And the embroidered Rs were of a garish yellow rather than gold.

“Children,” said the captain, but before she could continue, a voice came from one of the top hammocks: “Ooh, are we expanding?”

Then another voice, again from just beneath the ceiling: “Sweet!”

And out of the darkness, jumping from one hammock to the next, came two bouncing demons and landed an arm’s length from Josie, who stumbled backwards with terror.

Closer up, however, the demons turned out to be a boy and a girl, somewhat older than Josie, both wearing tattered red uniforms, both with shoulder-length black hair pointing in all directions except, it seemed, down.

“Yes, we are indeed,” the captain said, smiling like everything was perfectly normal. “This is Josephine.”

The boy and the girl looked at Josie, then at each other, and as if they had given each other a sign, they both burst into a silly old love song: “Oooh, Josephiiiine, my heart it aches for youuuuu.” 

A couple of other kids joined in the cacophonous rendition, but all fell silent instantly when the captain cleared her throat.

“Sorry, captain!” 

“Josephine, these are Rufus and Rebecca. They’ve been with me longest. They will be teaching you how to do your job.”

“Why us?” whined the boy.

“‘Cause we’re the best!” the girl answered.

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” said the boy, grinning.

A couple of kids behind them groaned or made rude gestures in their general direction, but neither Rufus and Rebecca nor the captain seemed to notice.

“Listen to them and follow their instructions to the letter! I expect to be sending you out on your own runs in a week from now.” She turned back to Rufus and Rebecca: “Go get her a uniform and something to eat before you sleep.”

“Sure thing, captain,” they answered, but Captain Glass was already turning to leave. 

A moment later the door closed behind her and any semblance of discipline left the room with her. The uniformed children started scrambling up the sides of the room, where, as Josie just noticed, huge shelves were set up, or else they pushed each other out of the way to get to a table at the back where a large pot seemed to contain some soup.

“Think fast!”

Josie grabbed a piece of bread out of the air just before it made contact with her nose. 

Hungrily, she tore off a bite. She hadn’t had anything to eat that day. It was bone dry but trying to push past the crowd to get at the soup was probably a bad idea. Picking a fight on her very first night seemed unwise, especially when she had no idea how brutal these other kids were nor how severely fighting was punished.

“Nice reflexes!” said Rebecca, who’d thrown the bread. “That’ll be useful.” 

It took Josie a moment to realise the older girl was talking about the bread. 

“What do you mean?”

Useful for what? Josie still wasn’t quite sure what these messengers did, apart from - well - the obvious.

“Found a uniform!” Rufus had been rummaging through the shelves at the side of the room and was now holding something that looked like it it had more holes than fabric. “You can sew, right? Eh, it’ll probably be fine. Also, we’ve got to do something about that name.”

“Yeah, Jooooosephine,” Rebecca said in a mocking tone. A few people laughed. Josie could feel herself going red. “Seriously, that's just not on. That’s prissy!”

“No, I’m Prissy!” a round-faced girl shouted from one of the lower-hanging hammocks. The kids around her giggled.

“How ‘bout Jo,” someone suggested.

“People at the orphanage called me Josie,” Josie pointed out.

“Still prissy,” said Rebecca. “I think we’ll call you Joss.”

Josie grimaced. “I don’t really like…” 

But nobody was paying attention, so she fell silent.

“Now where do we stash her, Becks?”

Rebecca - Becks? Really? Their taste in nicknames was awful! - shrugged her shoulders. 

Josie briefly wondered whether she should suggest a spot on the shelf, given that they were already treating her like an object. But then they might take her at her word and really make her sleep in the shelf. The hammocks looked far more comfortable.

“Prue’s not sharing with anyone yet!” a short boy about Josie’s age said, in between slurps of soup.

“True,” responded Rufus. He put his arm on Josie’s shoulder - Josie stopped herself from shrugging it off only because she did not want to offend one of the captain’s favourites - and led her to one of the hammocks slung near the ground.

“Alright, so you’re sharing this hammock and all your tools with Prue who’s on night shift right now. You’ll be switching shifts at the end of the month. We’ll be showing you what you need to know tomorrow morning. Prue’ll be back sometime before dawn and she’ll probably knock you out of bed, so you might want to get some shut-eye before then. But that’s up to you.”

“Except,” Becks took up the thought where her brother had left off, “it’s about to be lights out so if you want to do something besides sleep, you’d best be able to do it quietly and in the dark.”

“I’ll just sleep,” muttered Josie. 

She did try, but sleep wouldn’t come. The hammock was just too swingy, her stomach was still growling, the snores of the other children around her were too different from those of the orphanage and above all, the faster she went to sleep, the faster the dreaded morning would come and with it a job she had no clue how to do and no doubt punishment upon punishment until she either learned or died.


	3. Hard work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josie learns the messenger trade

Eventually, exhaustion must have overwhelmed Josie because she was fast asleep when she suddenly crashed to the floor.

“Wakey-wakey!”

Before she had even opened her eyes, somebody shoved something into her hands. 

Through the fog of sleep, she figured out that she was holding a bag, a pair of gloves and what looked like a weirdly-shaped mini-flute. A girl was a hand’s breadth from her face, staring at her.

“Hi, I’m Prue. That’s our stuff and this is my hammock.”

“I’m…”

“Joss.”

Josie cringed. 

“Ruff and Becks told me before I woke you up. Can you get off the hammock now, it’s been a long night.”

“Yeah, and it’s going to be a hell of a long day if you’re always this slow! Throw on your uniform and up and at ‘em, Joss. Captain wants you to know your stuff in a week, remember?” Becks was dragging Josie by the arm.

“Ooh, a week,” said Prue. “That’s harsh. It took me a month to learn my way around the city. The captain wasn’t happy. I still have the scars, wanna see?”

She lifted the side of her uniform to show an ugly, twisted mark, snaking its way up the side of her body. A couple of people laughed dirtily. Josie felt a heave trying to force its way out of her throat and had to swallow hard. It was as she had feared. The captain was a maniac and these kids were as cruel as her.

As quickly as she could, Josie slipped out of her old dress and into the ragged uniform. The trousers were a little too short for her and the arms a little too long, but at least none of the holes were in overly inconvenient places. Maybe tonight she would have time to put a needle to it - if she survived the day.

The moment she was dressed, the twins grabbed her, one by each arm and dragged her out of the door, down the corridor and into the cool morning air.

\---------------------------------------

The sun was only just rising and the city still seemed asleep. Josie wrapped her arms around herself. The torn uniform wasn’t very good at keeping out the early morning chill as the children set off down the road. 

Barely any of the lifts were moving and now that Josie was walking the streets on foot, she quickly figured out how they worked: Inside small recesses cut at the base of the mountain there were large wheels, some manned with mules, some with horses, who were slowly, painstakingly turning them to raise and lower the booths. 

For a moment Josie was glad that she wasn’t one of those horses, at least, but that only lasted until a whiff of something delicious reached her nose and she realised with dismay that she would have to work all day on an empty stomach.

Josie had never considered herself an open book, but clearly she was to the twins. Ruff took one look at her and asked: “You hungry?”

“Of course she’s bloody hungry, you idiot, she barely got any food last night,” chided Becks, then turned to Josie. “You’ve gotta learn to be fast and ruthless at dinner, Joss. The captain does make sure there’s enough for everyone, but some people are greedy pigs.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” said Josie, “but can you not call me ‘Joss’?”

Ruff rolled his eyes, said “Just hold on a sec” and in the blink of an eye he had scrambled up a nearby rope and popped into the building which was, as Josie quickly realised, the origin of the delicious fragrance.. A minute later he popped back out with a freshly baked soft bread roll and dropped it into Josie’s hands.

“Erm … thanks …” said Josie, surprised. “You really didn’t need to …”

“Don’t thank me, I just don’t want you getting all woozy and losing your balance. You’re from an orphanage, right? So the captain’s probably got to pay back your debt no matter what happens to you. She’d be pissed if we let you fall to your death before you’ve worked off any of it. We can pop by the market later before it closes and get you an apple or something.”

Josie had just taken a bite of the bread roll and her panicked question of “Wait, fall to my death?” came out a bit muffled and with more gross bits of wet dough than she would have liked.

“Well, yeah, can happen if you don’t watch yourself while you’re climbing.”

Josie quickly swallowed the rest of the bread roll: “So we’re not using the lifts?”

Both Ruff and Becks burst into laughter.

“Oh, Joss, sweetheart, do we look like we’re made of money?” asked Becks.

They most certainly did not in their tattered old uniforms with their hair that looked like it hadn’t seen water or a brush in months.

“The lifts are expensive. And they’re slow. The Red Roof Runners aren’t the only messengers in Scalbourne. There’s the Blackthorne Messengers and the Hopping Frogs and …”

“... and a whole lot of other pests who will be getting all our tips if we don’t get a move on, sis, ” Ruff interrupted Becks. Becks nodded.

Meanwhile, Josie was looking up and down the steep mountain face with all its bridges and roofs and booths and ropes and cables and realised for the first time why Captain Glass had come straight for her at the orphanage. Oh, if this job killed her, she would come back from the grave just to haunt Minnie!

“You’d better put those gloves on, Joss, unless you’re tired of the skin on your hands.”

“It’s Josie,” she said quietly as she pulled on her gloves, but the twins didn’t listen. Instead, Becks pushed her to the side of the road, toward the mountain wall. 

“Watch!” 

And like a spider she scuttled up until she had reached the bridges that led to the doors of the first houses. Ruff looked expectantly at Josie, but when she didn’t move, he copied his sister.

“Get a move on, Joss!”

“Josie!” she muttered, as she looked at the steep cliff face.

Josie slowly followed them, finding hand and footholds in the rock itself or else on the windows of the houses at street level. She had always thought she was good at climbing. After all, she had been the only kid in the orphanage who had ever climbed from the dormitory all the way onto the roof and back down again, without being caught, just to prove she could. And she’d only been nine years old back then. But now it took her ages to reach Becks and Ruff who were both looking rather impatient.

“At this rate we won’t even be breaking even today,” sighed Ruff as he pulled Josie onto the bridge. “I sure as hell hope you’ll get faster soon. Now look.”

He pointed at a little box with a flag on top hanging on a window. 

“If the flag is up, there’s something inside for us.” 

He climbed up to the window to grab the letter from the box. 

“We get paid by the recipient,” he pointed at the address on the envelope, “when we deliver the letter. Letters are our biggest business in the neighbourhoods all the way up,” he pointed up at the sky, “and down” he pointed down at the abyss. 

Josie followed his finger with her eyes and felt, for the first time in her life, actively glad she didn’t know what vertigo felt like. Holy shit, that gorge was deep. You couldn’t even make out the bottom from where they were standing.

“That’s where all the rich bastards live. ‘Cause they can afford the lifts, you know, and it’s quieter on the outskirts. Less smelly, too, the horse shit in the street gets real bad in summer,” explained Becks.

“But around here,” continued Ruff seamlessly, “a lot of people don’t know how to write or they just plain don’t want to, so what we do…” He put his own weird whistle to his lips and blew. A shrill sound made Josie’s hands fly to her ears. 

Seconds later, a handful of windows were thrown open, the nearest one just a narrow rope bridge from where they were standing. 

Ruff balanced along the bridge, his arms outstretched, until he had reached the window. 

An old woman was leaning out the window, shouting at Ruff: “HEY! YOU’RE LATE TODAY!”

“Yeah, sorry, Grandmother, we’ve got a rookie to train,” Ruff shouted back, waving his hand at Josie. Apparently the woman was a little deaf.

“The Bluecoats have been past but they didn’t even whistle.” The woman made it sound like this was the most impertinent thing she could possibly imagine.

“Well, the Roof Runners will always have your back, Grandmother,” said Ruff, taking a rather impressively deep bow on the rickety rope bridge. Unconsciously, Josie copied him, trying to figure out if she could have kept her balance. She caught herself mid-bow and quickly straightened up, embarrassed. She expected Becks to be standing next to her laughing, but in fact, the older girl had climbed to another open window. 

“What message can we deliver for you today?”

Feeling thoroughly out of place, Josie looked around. A young man was standing in the door of a house further up, clearly waiting for the messengers to reach him. He saw her looking at him and waved. Ruff and Becks were still busy but the man was waving ever more insistently. 

There was nothing for it. With a quick glance practiced by years of sneaking from the girls’ to the boys’ dormitory via the windows, Josie found a path. She hoped that there weren’t any obscure rules about not using a specific house as a climbing aid!

She started making her way up. Really, it was almost like climbing the orphanage facade, except here, instead of the ivy, there was the occasional rope hanging down from bridges and very rickety ladders. Eventually, she reached the man’s front door and breathed a sigh of relief. 

“What message can we deliver for you today?” Josie asked, copying Ruff. She briefly considered bowing, but then that man looked barely any less ragged than she did, not to mention that she would have felt rather silly, losing her balance in a bow after climbing all the way up here without any mishaps.

“Well, first of all,” said the man, a rather grumpy expression on his face, “you can tell your boss to get some faster messengers, I’ve been up here waving at you for ages.”

“I… I’m sorry … It’s my first…”

“Never mind sorry, are you going to take my message or not?”

“Uh - wha - yes, of course, sir!”

“Well, listen closely then! You go tell Lucas Littlefield up in Heaven’s Yard that he’s not above paying his bloody debts and if I don’t get my money soon I’ll be coming up there in person and I’ll shove a fucking poker up his arrogant arse. Understood?”

Josie had to bite back a giggle. She was glad Missy had gotten her used to swearing or she might have been appalled at the man’s choice of words.

“Yes, sir. Lucas Littlefield in Heaven’s Yard needs to pay his debts as soon as possible.”

“Don’t forget the poker!”

“No, sir, I shan’t.” 

“You’d better not! And stop grinning! Cheeky girl!”

The man slammed the door in her face. Josie hoped she wasn’t supposed to get payment from this grouch. She regretted not asking whether payment for verbal messages worked the same as for letters.

“Oh, hey, showing initiative! I like it!” 

Josie jumped and came down dangerously close to the edge of the bridge she was standing on. She let out a scream, her arms windmilling wildly, but Becks had already grabbed her by the collar.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you. So, what’s the message?”

“Erm…”

“If you’ve already forgotten, you’re knocking at his door and asking him to repeat it!” threatened Ruff.

“No, no, I haven’t. Lukas Littlefield in Heaven’s Yard needs to pay his debts.”

“To whom?”

“Erm, that guy,” Josie said, pointing at the now-closed door. “Obviously.”

“Well, Mister Littlefield might have a whole bunch of debts, you going to tell him ‘That guy in that house a bunch of levels above the main street wants your money’?”

“Oh, no, I should have asked for the name, shouldn’t I?”

Any pride Josie had felt about taking her first message was fading fast. She now felt very stupid and more than a little nervous. They weren’t going to make her go back and ask the guy for his name, were they?

Becks laughed: “Well, no worries, eventually you’ll know most people, at least the ones down here. That guy’s name is Lidgett, by the way, and if he’s going to send us all the way up to Heaven’s bloody Yard he should’ve at least had the decency to pay the lift fee for us.”

“We weren’t even planning to go up that far today,” grumbled Ruff. 

\---------------------------------------

But up that far they went - by the time they reached Heaven’s Yard it was late in the afternoon and Josie had already learned plenty about her new trade: How much to charge for what kind of message. How to ride along on lift cables when the liftmen weren’t looking to speed up your journey. How you always had to get your money before delivering your message or else some arseholes were going to cheat you. How you never ever used the whistle in the neighbourhoods at the city’s outskirts or the rich ponces living there would call the watchmen on you for disturbing the peace, but how you could totally use the whistle at night in the poorer neighbourhoods - you just risked receiving as many rotten apples and buckets of cold water to the head as messages. How, if you met other messengers on the mountain, you could tell what company they were from by their uniforms and that all the companies - with the exception of the Red Roof Runners, of course - had their weaknesses, but regardless, lobbing mud or rotten fruit at the competition from a safe hiding place was always acceptable. 

Josie had learned the names of so many streets and neighbourhoods that she was sure she would never remember them all, especially with the threat of punishment from the captain muddling her brain. Her muscles were also sorer than they had ever been in her life and for a moment she considered spending some of the money she had earned on taking a lift back down to the main street. But Becks and Ruff were probably going to report her to Captain Glass and then the captain was going to take that cane to her back - Josie decided she would just have to bear the aching muscles and climb down the way she had come up when they were done.

Their last stop before they would journey back to the headquarters was Lukas Littlefield’s mansion in Heaven’s Yard. This area of town was very different from the others. There were no rickety rope bridges and loose cables here. Everything looked so sturdy and wide you could have marched an army across it. 

The houses here were by far the most jaw-dropping thing Josie had ever laid her eyes on. There they hovered, twice, three times, even four times larger than the orphanage, stable in mountain hollows clearly made specifically for that purpose, jutting out just enough to give the inhabitants an amazing view of the world below them, giant windows letting the sunlight stream into the outward-facing rooms. How on earth had they even constructed these monstrosities? And how many people had lost their lives while doing so? Those houses were probably responsible for a fair number of orphans!

The twins made Josie deliver the message to Lukas Littlefield herself. She pulled the cord on the front door, making a loud bell ring. A moment later a man in a fancy black suit opened the door.

He gave Josie a look of complete and utter disdain: “What do you want?”

“Are you Lukas Littlefield?”

The man raised an eyebrow: “Am I ... ? No, of course I am not Mister Littlefield!”

“But this is his house, right? Because I’ve got a message for him.”

The man rolled his eyes: “Of course this is his house, what else would it be? His garden shed?”

Josie was just about to give the man a cheeky answer when she saw Ruff and Becks from the corner of her eyes giving her hand signals to hurry up.

“Can you take the message for him then?” she asked.

“Of course I can, silly girl. I am his butler.” He emphasised that last word like he expected it to mean anything to Josie. “From whom is the message?”

“Money first!”

The man shut the door in Josie’s face. For a moment, she wondered whether she should ring the bell again, when he returned and, with a loud “Ugh” dropped a few coins into her hand.

“Now, what is it? I do not have all day. Some of us have busy schedules.”

Josie put on her fanciest airs, the way the children at the orphanage had done when they had mimicked Matron and her visitors behind their backs, cleared her throat and said:  
“Mister Lidgett from Stanhope Falls requests that Mister Littlefield pay his debts and would like to let him know that, should he fail to do so, he will introduce a poker to Mister Littlefield’s behind.”

The butler shot her a look of horror and disgust and with another “Ugh” he slammed the door in her face, this time for good.

The moment the door was shut, Becks and Ruff burst into laughter.

“What?” asked Josie, somewhat offended. Yes, she had been a bit clumsy, but it was only her first day after all! 

“Introduce a poker to his behind! Holy shit! I don’t know where you get that stuff, but it’s hilarious!” shrieked Becks.

“Yeah, it was amazing! You didn’t look like the type to know how to put on airs, though. Did they send you to school at that orphanage of yours or what?” Ruff asked.

Josie shrugged. She’d barely had a handful of lessons at the orphanage, not enough to count as ‘school’.

“How much did he give you anyway?” Becks grabbed Josie’s hand rather roughly and counted the coins. “Oh, the bastard! He didn’t even tip … and us coming all the way up here! I hope he gets pokered before his boss does!”

Becks looked so outraged that Josie couldn’t help herself: She started giggling. Becks shot her a very bemused glance. Then, to Josie’s great surprise, she too started laughing and soon Ruff joined in as well.

The journey down was a lot less painful than Josie would have expected. Her arms and legs were burning up, her stomach was practically devouring itself and they still had a bunch of messages to deliver, but Becks and Ruff, rather than just pointing out the names of the neighbourhoods, had started to tell Josie silly stories about their inhabitants and every once in a while Ruff whispered: “Introduce a poker” and all three of them burst into a fit of giggles once more.

Near the main street they met a couple of their fellow Roof Runners carrying bags of produce from the market. Their mouths were smeared with what was clearly cherry juice.

Josie’s stomach was rumbling but she didn’t dare ask. Fortunately, Becks and Ruff had no such compunctions.

“Oi! Share and share alike!”

Next thing she knew, Josie had a handful of cherries shoved in her face by Becks. They were by far the sweetest and juiciest fruit she had ever eaten in her life.


	4. The punishment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josie disappoints the captain and faces her punishment.

The first week with the Red Roof Runners passed at incredible speed. 

The next day, the twins introduced Josie to Tranquil Greens, the Greens for short, the bottom-most neighbourhood in Scalbourne. It was as stunning as Heaven’s Yard, but in an entirely different way. The houses here were slightly less ridiculously-sized. To make up for it, the inhabitants had their own little lift system going from each house down to the very bottom of the gorge which was, as Josie now saw, filled with gorgeous sculpted gardens, lush forests and orchards full of fruit ready for the picking. 

The inhabitants, however, seemed no nicer than those of Heaven’s Yard. Josie got insults lobbed at her on two separate occasions just for wanting to have her money before delivering a letter. 

The inhabitants of the inner city, on the other hand, were usually dirty and sweaty from work and didn’t have much time to talk, but only very few of them were as grouchy as Mister Lidgett. Most of them greeted the children with a smile and they generally tipped more than the rich folk - “Which,” Becks had explained in an undertone as they had left a house at the Greens after delivering a wedding invitation, “is why we charge more from those ponces in the first place, but don’t let the captain know!” 

Some of the inhabitants of the inner city even seemed to regard the Roof Runners as their own kids. More than once now, a concerned Mum or Dad had dropped half a smoked sausage into Josie’s hand together with their tip or had sent a shy toddler her way with a bag of snacks: “Mummy says this is for you.”

On her fourth day of work, Josie had delivered some good news - “The butcher was wondering if your grandson wanted to become his apprentice” - to an old woman. She had accepted the message and, instead of a tip, had given Josie a horrified glance and an “Oh dearie me!” 

The next day, Josie was woken up at dawn when something large and soft was dropped on her face. She sputtered awake with a start.

“W-what?”

“Granny Cobb says you looked cold and told me to give you this ‘cause it will get much colder soon. She also said I need to tell the captain to take better care of you, ‘cause you look fragile, but I sure as hell am not going to do that! Pah! Fragile!”

The large, soft thing turned out to be a woolen scarf knitted with red and yellow yarn, matching Josie’s uniform almost perfectly. Josie made a mental note to deliver any messages from Granny Cobb extra-fast in the future.

On the fifth day, however, Josie very nearly lost her beautiful new scarf in an insidious sneak attack. They had just left the shack of Ezekiel Hedgecock, a wannabe scholar who had handed them a pile of letters that would probably take them all day to deliver but earn them enough to make up for it. Suddenly, from the corner of her eye, Josie saw a flash of green and next she knew, a small hand had ripped her bag with the letters from her shoulder and her scarf from her neck, nearly choking her in the process.

Josie crashed to her knees and skidded across the bridge she was on, feeling the burn of the wood scraping open her skin. 

“OI! FUCKING THIEVES!” screamed Ruff.

“LET’S GET THEM!” yelled Becks.

Josie sprang to her feet and followed the twins. Far ahead of them, two girls in bright green uniforms were sliding down a rope, cackling loudly. Immediately, the three Runners set off in hot pursuit, sliding down the same rope, racing after the thieving brats with all that their legs could give. Josie soon caught up with the twins and even overtook them, but the thieves were still far ahead, now descending to the next level below.

“We’ll never catch them!” shouted Becks.

Josie looked around in desperation.

“HEY!” she shouted.

She had spotted something the twins behind her had not: The thieves were stuck! There were only two ways for them to go: Up on a lift booth or across the rope bridge right below where Josie was standing now. And the next lift booth was at least a minute away!

Later that day when the other kids questioned her, Josie could not remember ever actually deciding to jump. She just did. She launched herself from where she stood and landed, to her own surprise, on her two feet, right in front the surprised Frog girls.

With a speed she herself had not known she possessed, Josie made a wild grab for the bag. The girl holding it dodged and instead, Josie’s hand closed on her blond ponytail. She yanked hard.

“LET GO!” the girl shrieked. 

Her friend lobbed herself at Josie. She felt a fist connect with her face. There was scratching, kicking, hair pulling, fists and legs were flying, but Josie, despite being outnumbered, gave as good as she got. 

When she felt the girls being dragged off her, she was scratched and bruised all over but the pain in her knuckles told her she had landed a few punches herself. Through one eye - the other was rapidly swelling shut - Josie saw the twins holding one flailing, bruised and bloodied girl each. The girls were about half the twins’ size so their flailing and screaming was pretty useless. 

A couple of windows around them burst open, revealing curious onlookers, but when they realised what they were hearing was just a squabble between two competing messenger gangs, they quickly went back to their own business.

“So, thought you could nick our letters, did you?”

“LET GO!”

“Hell no, I’m not letting you go just yet. You’re going to give us back our property and you’re going to apologise and then you can go.”

The response Ruff got was not an apology but a two-voiced “FUCK YOU!”

“Well, if that’s how you want to play it, we can just grab your bags, too, and consider that your apology,” Becks suggested, in a light tone, and immediately made a grab for the leather backpack now hanging on only one strap from the shoulder of her prisoner, who yelped a panicked “NO!”

“That’s half a day’s work in there! You can’t do that!”

“Oh, can’t we?”

“We’ll tell Palethorpe!”

“And what? Get your thieving little arses whipped raw for losing him money?”

“You’ll be in big trouble!”

“From whom? Palethorpe? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on! He tries to mess with us, he’ll end up with the Captain’s cane up his arse and he knows it! He won’t come after us, he’ll take it out on you. Now…”

Becks continued to slowly slip the backpack off the girl’s shoulder.

“Okay! Okay! Stop! We’re sorry!”

“And you won’t try that shit again?”

“No, no, we’re never going to try to steal from you again! Promise!”

“Alright then. Joss, go grab your stuff.”

“It’s Jo - oh, never mind.”

Josie slowly got to her feet, still a little wobbly, and made a grab for her bag and her scarf.

The moment she had them safely in hand, the twins set the girls down. They ran as fast as they could with not a glance back at the victors of this fight.

“You gotta feel sorry for them,” said Becks, looking after them. “Palethorpe’s a bully. He doesn’t feed them if they don’t earn enough. The captain thinks he’s a sadistic little shithead.”

Josie had a hard time imagining that the straight-laced woman had used those exact words.

“Man, you were amazing, though, Joss! The way you just threw yourself down on that rope bridge, all…” Ruff gave a battle cry that Josie was sure had never come out of her mouth at all. “Completely batshit nuts, mind, that bridge was wobbly as all hell, you could’ve been thrown off and broken your neck. Still, pretty impressive! You’re not half as prissy as I thought you were.”

Josie should have been glad that the captain’s favourites seemed to like her more by the day, but a nauseous pressure was settling on her chest and stomach now.

“What?” asked Ruff, clearly confused by Josie’s expression.

“If that Palethorpe man will stave them now ...”

“Oh, don’t even go down that road, Joss,” said Becks, “if we start giving our work to all the messengers who have less amazing kings, we’ll be the ones starving soon because we’re out of food money! They’ll be fine. Palethorpe hasn’t killed any of his workers yet.”

“But…”

“Listen, Joss, they can always make a run for it if it gets too bad. Now let’s get you to Granny Cobb, she’ll know how to fix that eye of yours fast. We’ve got work to do!”

\---------------------------------------

By the next day, Josie herself was considering making a run for it. That morning, Captain Glass had entered their dormitory just as the day shift had been dragging themselves out of their hammocks. She had come straight for Josie.

“Josephine.”

“Yes, captain?” Josie had answered, bleary-eyed.

“When you get back from work tonight, meet me in my office. I want to know if you’ve been making progress.”

Josie barely managed to work that day, to the great annoyance of Ruff and Becks. She kept dropping mail, forgetting messages and having to go back to ask again, confusing people’s names.

Finally, when she forgot to charge a Heaven’s Yarder for a letter, Ruff burst out: “For fuck’s sake, Joss, what is wrong with you today? Get your act together!”

But Josie couldn’t. She tried to recall all she had learned in the past days, tried to remember all the names of people and places, but they kept slipping through the cracks in her mind - cracks, that, oddly enough, had the exact shape of that huge scar on Prue’s side.

That evening when they returned and approached the door, Josie very nearly scampered. But the twins were standing on either side of her like guards and she had seen how fast they could run.

“Well, good luck,” said Becks as they stood in front of the office door. Ruff gave her a brief pat on the shoulder, then the twins disappeared in the dim hallway.

With a trembling hand, Josie knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Josie opened the door. Captain Glass’s office was much better lit than the entire rest of the building. It made Josie’s eyes water. She blinked furiously, hoping that it didn’t look too much like she was crying - even though she felt like doing just that.

The captain was sitting at a huge oak desk, looking, as usual, intimidating. Stacks of paper were piling up on one side of the desk. As Josie approached, she could see row and rows of numbers, something that looked like a work schedule soon to be nailed to the dormitory door, and a half-finished letter, written in red ink and a curlicued script.

The captain seemed to be halfway through some paperwork and had barely looked up at Josie, who was now standing in front of the oak desk waiting for the inevitable. She tried to recall as many of the city streets as she could but the sound of her own heartbeat was drowning out all useful thought. 

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, the captain looked up: “Ah, Josephine. Sit!”

Josie dropped heavily onto the upholstered chair on the other side of the desk.

“The twins told me you got in a fight yesterday?”

“I’m sorry, captain,” said Josie.

“Oh, no need to apologise. I am well aware these things are unavoidable sometimes. How is your eye?”

“Better, captain. Gran - erm - Madam Cobb gave me some ointment.”

“Ah, Granny Cobb, wonderful woman. Now,” the captain rose from her chair. Josie suddenly felt incredibly small. “To business.” 

She stepped out from behind her desk and opened a large, plain cabinet nearby. Josie couldn’t help but gawp: The cabinet doors had revealed a small-scale, vertical model of Scalbourne in intricate detail, reaching from the bottom of the cabinet where tiny resin trees and gardens represented the Greens to the accurately-decorated mansions up in Heaven’s Yard, at the top of the cabinet. The model even had a system of lifts that, if Josie wasn’t entirely mistaken, looked like it actually worked.

Josie looked up from the model to see the captain smiling.

“You seem impressed, Josephine.”

Unsure of what to say, Josie just nodded.

“Why, thank you,” said the captain, laughter in her voice. “It took me over a year to finish this, but it’s a good tool to teach you children.”

At those words, Josie suddenly remembered why she was here. Her stomach dropped so suddenly that she only barely caught what the captain said next.

“I’m going to name a place and you’ll point it out on the model. Let’s start with something easy. Gregor’s Gate. … Josephine?”

“Y-yes, of course, captain. Erm, Gregor’s Gate…” Josie lifted a trembling hand to point at the street that she thought may be the right one. It was up in Heaven’s Yard and had an actual gate, but there were multiple gates in Heaven’s Yard and she wasn’t at all sure anymore whether Gregor’s Gate was the black one with the metal worked into roses or the bronze-coloured one with the large cat on top - or maybe it was neither?

Josie flinched hard when the captain moved. She expected the cane to come down on her hand any moment now. But Captain Glass had merely shifted slightly.

“Good,” she said. “Now Dullard’s Pit.”

Josie found that, too, and Upper and Lower Goat Bridge, but things started to go downhill when Captain Glass asked her about Goldenrose. Wasn’t that down in the Greens? No, that was another rose-themed place, for sure! Goldenrose was in the inner city. But what if she had misremembered?

The captain was tapping an impatient rhythm with her cane on the floor now and it made Josie lose any remaining semblance of focus. A sour taste of bile was spreading in her mouth and always, always that scar on Prue’s skin kept popping back into her head.

Finally, Captain Glass sighed: “Well, it seems this is the best we’re going to get today. I was really hoping for better, Josephine.”

“I’m sorry! I can do better! I swear!” Tears were pooling in Josie’s eyes now and she was only too glad that the captain had turned away. She’d probably just think Josie was trying to get her pity and would get even more pissed off.

“I certainly hope you can. But I’m sure you understand that I have to make sure, so…”

Josie was close to fainting as she waited for her sentence. She’d taken plenty of beatings, but never anything that had left scars like Prue’s. She saw herself lying on the hammock, bleeding, crying, the other kids doing nothing but laugh like they did at Prue.

“I expect you in my office first thing after each shift for practice until I’m confident that you know your way around.”

“Wait, what?”

“Is there a problem?” the captain said, in a harsh tone. 

“No, no, of course not, captain. I’ll be here! I’ll do better next time around!”

“Good. Dismissed.”

Josie ran rather than walked out of the office door.

“WOAH!”

She very nearly collided with a gaggle of eavesdroppers, including the twins, a bunch of other dayshift kids in their undershirts with bowls of stew in their hands and half the night shift on their way out.

“How’d it go?” asked Becks and Ruff in unison.

“Went okay, but she wants me back every night until I know my way around properly.”

A groan of disappointment ran through the crowd.

“Aw, bummer. You’ll be missing supper every night!” said a lanky boy whose name, Josie thought, was Isaac.

“Not if you don’t eat three times your share, she won’t,” said Becks.

“I’m a growing boy! I need the food!”

“You’re a greedy pig is what you are!”

While Becks and Isaac were squabbling, Ruff laid a comforting hand on Josie’s shoulder.

“Sorry ‘bout this, we’ll make sure to save some food for you, even if we have to kick Isaac’s arse for it. Besides, in a week or so you’ll probably have it all down perfectly. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

“Never mind beating myself up!” Josie burst out. “I’m glad the captain didn’t!”

Ruff raised his eyebrows with a confused “Huh?”

“I can handle missing supper sometimes. I’m just glad she didn’t beat me bloody, like Prue!”

Several people around them snorted, as Prue’s jaw dropped open, making her look like a fish on land - an extremely offended fish.

She rounded on the day shift kids, hands on her hips, looking suddenly much more threatening than her small frame should have allowed.

“Are you telling me you never told her I was joking?”

“Erm…”

Becks and Isaac had stopped arguing and now both looked rather abashed, while Ruff said, in a low voice: “We just kinda thought she knew.”

Prue took a deep breath and, in a loud burst, released a storm of anger over the heads of the day shift kids: “And how on earth was she supposed to? She’s only just gotten here! You don’t know if shit like that happened back where she came from, you stupid twats!”

Josie flinched as Prue turned to her, but when she spoke, it was in a tone of deep exasperation rather than anger: “Those scars I showed you, they’re not from the Captain. A couple years ago, I lost my balance and crashed onto a lift cable. They get ridiculously hot in summer, so I got some serious burns. I probably wouldn’t have made it without the Captain, you know. She spent about half a year’s profits on getting me a good doctor. I wouldn’t have made that stupid joke if I’d thought you’d take me seriously! I just thought someone,” Prue glared at the day shift kids, “would let you know the Captain doesn’t do stuff like that. Other messenger kings, maybe, but not Captain Glass. Ever!”

“I do wonder what it is that I never do!”

The entire crowd flinched hard. A huge glob of Isaac’s stew slopped over the side of his bowl and onto the floor.

“Because if it is ‘Telling you to stop lazing around and go do your work’’, you are deeply mistaken.” The Captain’s voice stayed surprisingly pleasant, though she was giving the crowd a very irritated look.

“Already gone!” squeaked Prue and tore out of the building at break-neck pace, followed by the rest of the night shift.


	5. Palethorpe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josie has a day off, gets lost and runs straight into trouble.

Ruff had been right: A week of practicing with the captain every night and Josie could have pointed out every street of the city in her sleep - even the ones she hadn’t personally been to.

Captain Glass drilled her hard. Frequently, Josie wouldn’t return to her hammock until everyone else was already fast asleep. But true to the twins’ promise, a bowl of stew waited for her there. It was usually cold and not enough to fill her up, but the other Runners didn’t let her starve.

During the days, Josie was now sent out on her own. As she soon discovered, this didn’t really mean spending all day jumping across roofs and scrambling up cables all on her lonesome. 

Sure, the messengers started out in different neighbourhoods, but by midday more often than not they would run across each other, give messages and letters to far-off neighbourhoods to people who were headed there anyway, trade rumours and funny stories and occasionally share a treat they had gotten in place of a tip or bought with a bit of money skimmed off the top of their day’s earnings. 

Josie didn’t dare do the latter, though. Captain Glass didn’t beat her messengers, they all assured her, but who knew? She might yet make an exception for a girl who was still deep in debt and already stealing her money.

Some weeks after Josie started going out on her own, she checked the work schedule on the wall one evening and was surprised to find that her name wasn’t on it. Had the captain made a mistake? But then, didn’t everyone always go on about how persnickety Captain Glass was about her work schedules, how she was the best messenger king in the city because she knew how to get the most out of her messengers without running them ragged - and Josie had only just stopped practicing with her every night. It seemed almost impossible that Captain Glass could have just forgotten her. But then, why wasn’t she on the schedule? Had she not worked enough? Was Captain Glass going to sell her on to someone worse? Or maybe just cut her losses and kick her out? What was she going to do then?

Swallowing down the rising panic, Josie called out: “Erm, Ruff? Becks?”

“Huh?”

“Can you come have a look at this? I’m not on here...”

“On where?” said Ruff, poking his head out of his hammock. His face looked like he’d been half-asleep. “Oh, on there! ‘Course you’re not, it’s your day off tomorrow.”

“Oh sweet, mine too,” said little Gertie, who was swinging on her hammock near the twins. “I can show you the parts of town that you never get to see when you’re working! It’ll be fun. See, if you walk down the main road…”

Gertie was talking a mile a minute, but Josie wasn’t taking any of it in.

“Wait, day off? We have days off?”

“Just when we switch from day shift to night shift. Look at the schedule, you’re on night shift starting from the day after tomorrow, I bet,” Becks called down from her own hammock. 

“Yeah, the captain wants us to sleep, so we can get used to the new schedule,” said Gertie, briefly interrupting her talk on the manifold sights of Scalbourne. “But that’s a waste of a day if you ask me.”

“Yeah, and she knows it, too! Betcha she’ll give you your pay for the month tomorrow morning so you can enjoy yourself.”

“Erm, Becks - I’m up to here,” Josie pointed to her nose, “in debt. I won’t be getting paid for a decade and then some!”

“Eh, you’ll see.”

And in unison, the twins’ heads disappeared in their hammocks. Josie stood there for a moment, listening to Gertie prattling on, then, without another word, she went to bed.

\---------------------------------------

“Hey! Wake up!”

“Urgh, I’ll get up in a moment, Prue.”

“Not Prue!”

Josie slowly opened her eyes. She felt like she hadn’t slept at all. She’d been tossing and turning for hours, which, given that she was sleeping in a hammock, was a rather uncomfortable experience.

Her gaze slowly focused on her surroundings and found a small face, barely inches from her own, sporting a wide grin.

“HOLY SHIT!”

Josie scrambled backwards, lost her balance on the hammock and with a painful bump, landed on the hard floor.

Rubbing her aching behind, she glared at Gertie, who was still grinning and looking a little less than sane for it: “What on earth did you do that for?”

“Sh! Nobody’s up yet!”

“Yeah, we are now!” answered a disgruntled voice from one of the upper hammocks.

“Go back to sleep, it’s early!”

“Urgh! Shut up!”

“Wait, you woke me up early?” asked Josie.

“Well, yeah, duh! It’s our day off! We want to enjoy every bit of it! Get dressed!”

Josie dragged herself up, into her clothes and out of the door, feeling like she had never enjoyed herself less in her life. Meanwhile, Gertie was prattling on endlessly about their plans for the day.

“... and Isaac and Jack are off, too, but Isaac’s already gone because he wants to be at the market before it opens and Jack told me to fuck off when I tried to wake him up.”

“I didn’t know that was an option,” muttered Josie, but Gertie didn’t seem to hear her. 

“Oh yeah, before I forget. The captain said to give you this!”

Gertie pushed a bag into Josie’s hand. Josie, still half asleep and very confused, pulled out a small handful of coins. Her mouth fell open.

Gertie must have misunderstood the surprised look on her face: “Yeah, it’s not much, I know, but you can make it last quite a while. They’ve got some really good, cheap stuff at the hidden market, too! And if you’re lucky, you can win some...”

“Hidden market?”

Josie immediately wished she hadn’t asked, as Gertie grabbed her hand and - with surprising strength for such a tiny girl - dragged the still snoozy Josie through the main street. 

Even though the sun hadn’t risen yet, Scalbourne was slowly waking now. Merchants were hurrying through the streets with their wares to set up shop at the market. Horses and donkeys were starting their day’s work in the cubby holes by the side of the road, making the lifts shudder awake. Carriages were trundling along the side of the road, spitting out passengers who looked like all they wanted was a night’s sleep in a bed that didn’t move. And if Josie wasn’t entirely mistaken, they had just passed a huddle of night shifters dragging themselves back home. But before Josie could do so much as wave at them, Gertie had pulled her on. Soon, the little girl had dragged Josie further than she had ever gone along the main road and Josie, whose arm felt like it was about to fall off, had had about enough. She dug in her heels.

“Joss! Come on! Hurry!” Gertie yanked at her arm.

“No! I’m tired, I’m about to switch shifts, I don’t want to spend all day being dragged around the city. I’m going back. Let go!”

Gertie dropped Josie’s arm and turned to her with a face that made Josie feel like she had just personally murdered the girl’s entire family.

“Are you sure? We’re almost there! Look! Up there!”

All Josie could see was more road. 

“At least let me show you!” 

Gertie sounded like she was about to burst into tears.

“Alright, alright, but when you’ve shown me, I’m going back to my hammock to sleep.”

Gertie literally jumped with joy: “Sweet!” 

To Josie’s great surprise, when the little girl set off again, she only ran along the street until she had reached the next lift wheel, then disappeared in the hole.

“HEY! WAIT!”

Josie rushed after her, but skidded to a halt when she found herself facing a stern-looking mule driver holding up a hand.

“Hold on there, password!”

“Erm, password?” Josie asked, confused. “My friend just ran in here and…”

“Password or fuck off.”

A little voice echoed from behind the muscular man: “She really is my friend and the password’s Horseshoe!”

“Humph,” said the mule driver and stepped aside, pulling his mule, revealing a tunnel in the mountain wall and Gertie’s flushed face in the lamplight.

\---------------------------------------

“Wow,” was all Josie could say when they broke free of the narrow tunnel and emerged into a brightly lit mountain chamber filled with dozens of people, huddled together in small groups or else guarding wares set up in front of them on little tables or blankets. It looked like there was an entire network of tunnels in the Scalbourne mountain that Josie had never even heard about.

“I know, right? I didn’t even know this was here for months after I first came to Scalbourne. You’ve got to know people who know people, you know and if you’re new... Ooh, look at that necklace!”

Gertie had turned around mid-sentence to stare, open-mouthed, at a beautiful necklace with a heart shimmering in vivid green dangling at its end.

“How much is that?” she asked the young man who was sitting, cross-legged, behind the blanket of jewellery. 

He mumbled something that made Gertie sigh: “That’s a year’s worth of pay, come on, you can’t be serious!”

In response, the man mumbled something that sounded vaguely like an insult. Gertie turned around, arms crossed, lips pushed out in a comical pout.

“We never get anything nice!”

“Maybe if your standards were lower…”

But Gertie wasn’t even listening. Nor was she pouting anymore. She had spotted a group of children and teenagers playing a dice game in a corner. Their bags and whistles clearly showed they were messengers, but none of them were wearing red. 

With a wide smile, she approached the group: “Hey, can I join?”

“Got any cash?” asked the oldest-looking girl, who was wrapped in a blue cloak.

Gertie showed them a handful of coins.

“Sit then.”

Josie grabbed Gertie by the shoulder: “Wait, what are you doing? They’re the competition…”

“Who cares? It doesn’t matter. We’re not at work.” Her tone was so contemptuous that she may as well have added ‘duh’. “So you coming?”

And gamble away all the money she had only just been given? No way!

“Nah, I’ll have a look around.”

“Suit yourself,” said Gertie, turning to the other children, but then turned to Josie once more and, as an afterthought, added: “Oh, you should go to the stall over there. The yellow one. Their ale is amazing! You can wait for me there!”

Josie walked away pretending to check out the stalls, but if anyone had asked her what she was looking at, she couldn’t have told them. Now that the first surprise was fading away, she quickly realised that something wasn’t quite right here. Why weren’t all these beautiful things being sold at the market out on the main road where everyone could see them? And was she imagining things or did everyone look incredibly shifty down here? And she hadn’t seen a single watchman since she had entered the hidden market and they were usually everywhere, infesting the city like rats, glaring at the messengers every time they passed. 

And here she was, in the midst of a bunch of fences, thieves and Lord only know what else, casually carrying a bag of more money than she had ever held before in her life and looking so thoroughly out of place that she may as well have ‘designated victim’ tattooed on her forehead. She quickly dismissed Gertie’s suggestion; she’d never had any ale before and trying it here of all places would be the height of foolishness.

With a quick look around her, she stuffed her money bag into her uniform. Hopefully nobody had seen her! Then again, it wasn’t a lot of money. Nobody would hurt her over that little bit, would they? But then, there were plenty of messengers from other companies around, including Palethorpe’s lot. Somebody might do something desperate and she’d never be heard of again!

Josie decided to get the hell out before that happened, but when she turned to walk back to the entrance of the hidden market, she found that in her panic she had gotten completely turned around. She wasn’t even near the market anymore. Instead, she had walked along a side tunnel that looked a bit like the one through which Gertie and her had entered, but wasn’t. 

She turned around and ran back to where she thought the market was. But maybe she had missed a turn-off or maybe this entire bloody tunnel system had been created specifically to confuse her. Whatever was going on here, she couldn’t find her way back to the market. Even after what felt like minutes of running, she was still in an entirely deserted tunnel. 

More annoyed than panicked now, Josie leaned against the tunnel wall and let herself slide to the floor with a long “Fuuuuuuuck.”

There went her only day off. Sure, someone was going to come by. Eventually. They had to. The market had been teeming with people. If nothing else, Gertie would eventually notice she was gone. But by then it may well be night and not only had Josie not enjoyed herself, she had also not slept nor eaten a bite today. Her stomach was growling loudly enough to make her head hurt.

“Oh, shut up,” she muttered, as she let her head drop onto her folded arms. It immediately shot up again. There! She’d heard voices right nearby! Finally!

She got up and listened carefully. Suddenly, one of the voices grew louder and angrier. It echoed around the tunnel, making it difficult to figure out where it was coming from and even more difficult to hear what it was saying, but from the tone of it, Josie didn’t want to meet its owner. Still, she had to get out of here sometime! 

Slowly, Josie shuffled along in the direction where the voice was strongest. As she got closer, she started to hear another voice, lower, smaller, pleading. Soon, she could understand some words: “... tried but there’s always watchmen up there! And he’s not like the others! He actually cares about his money! He’s probably keeping private guards and…”

There was a squeal of pain, followed by a growl: “I don’t give a shit. You get that money for me if it’s the very last thing you do! Fucking stab him in his sleep if you must!”

“O-okay, boss.”

Out of an alcove near Josie shot a green arrow and, without so much as stopping to acknowledge her presence, it disappeared down a narrow tunnel that Josie hadn’t even spotted before. She was just about to follow the small, green-clad figure when, to her horror, a much larger figure stepped out of the alcove and this one very much did acknowledge that she was there.

“Oi!” man in the shabby green uniform shouted. Josie instinctively took a step back. Her mind was reeling. Judging by his uniform this man could only be the infamous Palethorpe. Not only did he look about as terrifying as she had imagined him, not only was he carrying a horse whip, not only was he glaring daggers - no, full-sized swords - at her, no, she had also just witnessed him planning a crime.

“What are you doing here? Why’re you eavesdropping?”

“Nothing. I mean, I wasn’t eavesdropping at all, sir. Just got lost.”

“How much did you hear?”

“Of what?” Josie asked, trying to sound clueless, but even as the words left her mouth, she realised she sounded anything but convincing. 

Palethorpe glared at her, letting his eyes wander slowly up and down her, clearly trying to determine whether she was telling the truth. Suddenly, without warning, his hand shot forward. Josie only just managed to jump back and avoid his grasp.

She tore down the tunnel where the Frog had disappeared as fast as her legs could carry her. Behind her she heard Palethorpe’s heavy steps. Her heart was beating so fast she wished it could do the running in place of her legs, which felt like they were about to cramp. Any second now her lungs would give out. Any second now he’d catch up with her.

But Josie’s legs and lungs weren’t those of the pale orphanage girl anymore who spent most of her days washing dishes and darning socks. They were a messenger’s legs, a Scalbourne kid’s lungs, shaped from weeks of jumping across dangerous chasms and climbing up swinging ropes. Without Josie noticing, Palethorpe had fallen behind.

And then, finally, finally, Josie burst out of the tunnel and right into the bustling market. In desperation she screamed: “GERTIE!” not caring that people were staring at her.

For a moment nothing happened, then the little girl popped out from behind a stall of beautiful fabrics and thread, wrapped in a bright purple shawl that clashed horribly with her uniform.

“What are you screaming for?”

“We’ve got to go!”

“Go where?”

From the corner of her eye, Josie saw a green blur burst out of a tunnel.

“GO!”

She grabbed Gertie by the hand and without heeding either the little girl’s nor the fabric merchant’s screams of protest she dragged Gertie straight across the silks, through the crowd, past the mule driver and out onto the street.

\---------------------------------------

“Hold on! Stop! You’re ripping my arm off! JOSS! STOP!” Gertie dug her heels in.

“No, we need to get back home!”

“What the hell is the matter with you?”

Josie looked over her shoulder. Palethorpe was nowhere in sight. But this was no time for dawdling. Sure, he’d have trouble getting through the crowd as fast as they had, what with the size of him, but any moment now he could burst out of that tunnel. Maybe he wouldn’t go after them in broad daylight. But Josie wouldn’t have bet on that. Besides, he had a gang of desperate messengers at his beck and call who could jump Josie at any moment. Who would bat an eye at a squabble between two messenger gangs?

“I’ll tell you while we’re walking!” she said, and tugged on Gertie’s arm once more.

Gertie gave a long-suffering sigh and mumbled something that sounded like “... going alone next time.”

As they were walking, Josie started to explain. Every few minutes she would look over her shoulder but Palethorpe was still nowhere to be seen. By the time she had finished her story, the Roof Runner headquarters were almost in sight.

“... so you see why we had to get out of here! We’ve got to tell the captain! Preferably before I get murdered! So please! Hurry!”

But instead of hurrying, Gertie stopped: “Oh, that’s bad. That’s really bad.” Her one free hand began pulling threads out of her new shawl.

“No, really?” Josie said, barely holding back her anger. “COME ON!”

“No, the thing is - we can’t tell the captain!”

“Why on earth not?”

“Because she doesn’t like us going to the hidden market. She thinks it’s - well - dangerous.”

Josie’s jaw dropped. “And you are telling me this now?”

“She was really pissed off last time she found out I’d gone there.”

Gertie now looked downright terrified. Josie imagined what Captain Glass would be like when she was truly pissed off. She couldn’t imagine the captain shouting threats. Not like Palethorpe. But Josie found even the captain’s mild disappointment scary, so she understood very well why Gertie didn’t want to make her angry. But then…

“Then why did you go?”

“Well, it’s fun, isn’t it? There’s always nice stuff you can’t get at the normal market and there’s always people to play dice games with. And they sell us ale there! If I try to buy ale at any other place in town they kick me out!”

Gertie was pouting again.

“Well, I wouldn’t have to tell the captain where it happened…”

“She’d know.”

“Or that you told me about the hidden market. I could just say I didn’t know we weren’t supposed to go there.”

She’d most likely get punished anyway, but whatever the captain held in store for her had to be better than being murdered by Palethorpe.

But Gertie folded her hands in a begging gesture: “Please, please, please don’t tell her. Pleeeease! She’ll know it was me who told you about the hidden market. I’m the only one who still goes there!”

Josie had half a mind to backhand Gertie into a nearby carriage. But the girl was looking at her like a kicked puppy and she felt evil even thinking about it. 

Gertie grabbed her by the sleeve: “Pleeeeease! Pretty please! You can have what’s left of my pay! And I’ll fix your uniform for you!”

“I can do that myself!”

“Please, please don’t tell her! She’ll rip my head off!”

“Alright! Alright!” Josie peeled Gertie’s hand off her sleeve. “I won’t tell her.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank…”

“Don’t bloody thank me. Tell me what I’m supposed to do about Palethorpe.”

He still hadn’t turned up but Josie could see a huddle of green figures in the distance. She pulled Gertie inside.

In the semi-darkness of the hallway, she turned to the little girl: “So… you were about to tell me how I avoid being murdered without telling Captain Glass.”

“I don’t really know,” Gertie was playing with her shawl again. The bottom was already completely frayed. “But maybe he doesn’t actually want to kill you. I mean, he didn’t follow you all the way here, did he? And it’s not like you actually heard that much. You couldn’t send the watchmen after him if you wanted to!”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t know that!”

“I’m sure he won’t want to hurt you in front of witnesses. Just stay around people all the time and you’ll be fine.”

“Oh yes, that’s great, why didn’t I think about that before? I’ll just stay around people all the time. On the freaking night shift. Thanks, Gertie!”

\---------------------------------------

The first week on the night shift was pure terror for Josie. She tried to tag along with other Roof Runners but of course that meant she was neglecting her own sections of town, so the night shift kids she clung to had to share their money with her. It didn’t take more than a few days before the captain summoned her to her office and, without ever getting up or raising her voice, chewed her out.

Captain Glass’s ice-cold “Do - your - job” still ringing in her ears with unspoken threat, Josie got up in the mid-afternoon the next day to run to the market and used all the money she had to buy herself a knife.

With nerves as frayed as Gertie’s shawl she went out that night, keeping one hand on her knife at all times. She didn’t make a lot of money and very nearly fell off a bridge twice while looking over her shoulder, but she survived to see the sunrise. The same thing happened the night after. And the night after that.

After a couple of weeks without a glimpse of Palethorpe or any of his people, Josie began to relax. He wasn’t after her after all. He couldn’t be or she’d be dead already.

In the meantime, the whole city had started to gossip about the break-in in Heaven’s Yard. It seemed the thieves had somehow managed to get into one of the mansions and had left with as many diamonds and pearls as they could carry. Apparently a guard had been knocked out and was still recovering, but to Josie’s relief nobody had actually been killed. 

When the day shift kids had first brought the news with them, Josie had briefly considered telling them that she knew who was behind it. But if the gossip spread to any other messenger gangs and from there to Palethorpe, as it was likely to, she would be utterly screwed. It was a small miracle that Gertie hadn’t blabbed yet, anyway.


	6. The Race

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josie joins in a messenger race and meets Palethorpe again

A few days after the break-in, the twins finally joined the night shift, too, driving Palethorpe from Josie’s mind once and for all.

“What do you mean you don’t like the night shift?”

“Yeah! How can you not? Messenger races! There’s one tonight!”

“What?” Josie asked, shooting an utterly confused glance at Becks who was practically bouncing as she squealed “You need to join in!”

“Wait, nobody has told you about messenger races? Gertie?”

The little girl shrugged her shoulders: “Why should I care about your bloody races. I never win anyway. Not all of us have legs like a bloody wheel horse! Besides, the captain doesn’t like the races. They’re dangerous and keep us from our work.”

Josie glared at Gertie in disbelief. The little girl responded by sticking her tongue out. Fortunately nobody else noticed.

“Isaac?”

“Have you seen Joss go? If we let her race, nobody else will ever win again! Except maybe you guys!”

There was a mutter of agreement among the night shift crowd.

“Oh, you are a bunch of selfish twats!” said Ruff, rolling his eyes. 

“We’ll show you tonight. Meet us at the Blue Church at two, alright?”

\---------------------------------------

The twins’ excitement was infectious. That night, Josie worked harder than ever to get as much work done as she could before two. She’d thought it would be no problem. By midnight only the tradespeople and a few particularly debauched nobles whose days seemed to begin at dusk would still be sending messages anyway. 

But she hadn’t counted on Ezekiel Hedgecock and a fellow scholar down by Cow’s Tread exchanging messages about a new theory of the universe all bloody night. Josie very nearly missed the bells telling her it was now two in the morning and by the time she had made her way back up from Cow’s Tread for the third time that night, it was well past two.

She arrived at the Blue Church covered in sweat and panting. Looking around her, she saw, in the light of their lamps, a gaggle of messengers of all ages from little kids tinier than Gertie to tall men and women in their early twenties. The latter were all clad in black, marking them out as part of Blackthorne’s gang, the only one who employed messengers that old. But it seemed they, too, were interested in what was happening tonight. In fact, there seemed to be representatives from every single messenger gang. With great surprise, Josie spotted the two Frog girls with whom she had gotten into a scrap standing just feet from Ruff and Becks, chatting, apparently calmly, with Isaac.

“There she is!” shouted Becks as she spotted Josie. “Told you she’d show up.”

“Great!” replied one of the black-clad older messengers, sounding not at all pleased. “Can we start now? Some of us still have work to do.”

Josie sidled up to the twins: “So, how does this work?”

“Easy. We all put money in a bag, Tom here,” Ruff pointed at the annoyed messenger, “takes the money down to the main road to the Northern Gate and then whoever gets there first gets the whole bag.”

“Oh. Well, I’m actually a bit tired…”

“Aw, come on,” howled Ruff. “We made them wait for you and you’re not even going to race?”

“I just spent half my night helping along scholarly progress with my feet, I’m not going to be very fast,” whispered Josie, so only the twins could hear her.

“You don’t have to be fast if you just find a clever route, you know. Now cough up!” Becks held out her hand, wiggling her fingertips.

“I don’t have any money either.”

The twins sighed in unison.

“Well, do you have anything else valuable?”

“I’ve got my knife,” Josie said, pulling it, “but I don’t really want…”

Before she could finish her sentence, Ruff had grabbed it and tossed it into Tom’s waiting bag.

“Hey! I still need that!”

“Well, it’s in the bag now, so if you want it back, you’ll just have to win,” said Ruff.

Josie gave him a suspicious glance: “Why are you so keen on making me race anyway.”

“‘Cause they’ve been bragging about how fast their new girl is all bloody night,” sighed Tom. “And I told them to stop lying. Now, oh amazing one, are you going to compete or are you just going to keep us all waiting all night.” 

He gave her a disdainful look. Apparently seeing her in the flesh made him absolutely certain that the twins were full of shit. His condescending half-smile made Josie bristle. She barely even felt the weakness in her limbs anymore.

“Yeah, I’m competing. Of course I’m competing!”

\---------------------------------------

They lined up on the street in front of the Blue Church, a wide and stable bridge that could carry them all and fit the thirteen racers side by side. Each of them was carrying a lamp to light their way. Muscles tense and teeth clenched, Josie was waiting between a Blackthorne guy and a Frog girl for Tom’s signal from below.

There! For a split second, the light of a lone lamp down on the main street had turned into a fireball, easily visible from the Blue Church. 

Josie’s legs seemed to move without her input. Within seconds she had outstripped most of the other racers. She was level with the twins and the only people ahead of them were a Blackthorne with ridiculously long legs, one of the Frog girls who had beaten her up and a lone Bluecoat girl. Josie was sure she could have overtaken all of them easily if her legs hadn’t been through so much already. As it was, she stood no chance.

But there! In the light of her lamp she spotted a loose rope on a bridge above hanging just right. If she jumped and managed to grab it, she could swing over a gap way too long to jump over. It was the perfect short-cut. While running, she managed to slide the lamp’s handle up to her elbow. She jumped. She grabbed. She slipped. The rope felt rough even through her gloves but she reached the other side of the gap with ease, breaking into a run the moment her feet hit solid ground.

For a moment Josie was ahead of everyone. She felt the wind rush through her hair, heard the fast drumbeat of her feet mixed with that of her heart. It was like there was nothing and no one in this world left but her. Not even loneliness. This was freedom!

The illusion was rudely shattered when the Frog girl dropped from a ledge right in front of her. She sprang immediately from a crouch back into a run. The fall had barely even slowed her down.

Swearing loudly, Josie set off after her. They had reached the poorer parts of town now where the bridges were wobbly and full of holes. Josie had very nearly twisted her ankle here a fair number of times but now she was practically flying across, reaching for ropes and lift cables, jumping from one road to another, scrambling down facades of houses without even thinking - Josie had never before realised how natural all of this had become to her.

But noticing that she didn’t need to think about it made her think about it and suddenly, her strides were no longer quite the right length, her hands missed spots she could have easily grabbed before and she had to stop to reach them. The Frog girl was pulling ahead. She was already below her now, getting ever closer to the main road.

In a desperate attempt to catch up, Josie took a deep breath and jumped over the edge of the bridge she was standing on. 

The moment her feet left the ground, she realised this was a really bad idea. The distance between this bridge and the roof of the house below was far too great and the wobbling of the bridge had thrown off her jump. She wouldn’t land right! She barely had time to panic before slamming into the roof, shoulder first, rolling off the roof and hitting a bridge below. Pain spread like lightning from Josie’s elbow through the rest of her body. She couldn’t get up! She could barely breathe! A single thought made it through the haze of pain: At least this bridge was stable!

Then, to Josie’s horror, something else penetrated the haze of pain, too: A familiar voice, very surprised and very pleased.

“That’s her. Lisney, that’s the girl!”

\---------------------------------------

Somebody grabbed Josie round the middle, threw her over their shoulder and ran. 

When they dropped her, she hit the hard floor of what she soon realised had to be one of the tunnels deep inside the mountain.

She found herself looking up at two tall, burly men. One of them was Palethorpe, who was looking down at her with a smug, triumphant smile. The other one had to be Lisney who, judging by his yellow uniform, was the king of the Yellowtails. He looked far more anxious than smug. In Palethorpe’s hand, a long knife glinted dangerously in the lamplight.

Josie tried to get up, but the fall seemed to have damaged her right leg. With a squeal of pain, she sank back to the ground.

“Well, well, well, the eavesdropper!” With each word, Palethorpe took a step towards Josie, who was frantically scrambling back until finally her back hit a wall. Palethorpe towered over her, clearly enjoying her fear.

“Listen,” Josie squeaked. Her voice didn’t seem to be working as it should. “I didn’t tell anyone what I heard. You’d know if I had! I’m never going to either! I didn’t even hear that much in the first place! If you just let me go…”

“And why would I do that?”

“Please, you can trust me! I promise I won’t tell anyone!”

“Or I could just kill you and be sure you won’t tell anyone.”

“The watchmen will be after you!”

Both men burst out laughing. The noise echoed off the tunnel walls.

“What, for a messenger kid?” chuckled Palethorpe, when he had finally calmed down enough to speak. “Nobody will care you’re gone.”

Josie swallowed. He was right. Nobody would care. She would disappear from the midst of the Red Roof Runners just like she had disappeared from the orphanage and a few days later they would all forget she had ever existed. Her fellow Runners, no matter how decent they were to her now, would go on just fine without her. Captain Glass would go pick up some other kid to replace her. She might be a bit annoyed at having to train that kid from scratch again but within a few weeks everything would be back to normal. Except Josie would be dead. Without a family to remember her, why had she even for a moment thought anybody would.

When Palethorpe came at her with the knife, Josie barely even tried to get away. She rolled over once and felt the burn of the knife entering her arm. She heard herself scream over Lisney’s awkward declaration of “Alright, you just get on with it, I’ll be over here making sure nobody can get in.”

It was odd. Even though she was in more pain than ever before in her life, even though she knew she was about to die, Josie felt like laughing at Lisney’s incredibly blatant excuse. 

As Palethorpe brought his heavy weight down on her chest to pin her in place, just as he was about to bring the knife down on her throat, Josie wondered idly if the Frog girl would end up winning the race. Maybe she could use the money and her knife to buy herself a week or two of survival away from Palethorpe. She could leave Scalbourne, find some nice farm on the outskirts, make a new life for herself. Maybe she would look back one day and remember the former owner of that knife, even for just one second. It was a nice dream.

Josie closed her eyes. Any moment now, Palethorpe would cut her throat and it would all be over. She hoped it wouldn’t hurt too much.

But just as Palethorpe brought the knife down, there was a commotion outside. Instead of in her throat, the knife buried itself deep in Josie’s shoulder. She screamed. Her eyes popped open. Through a blur of agony, she saw Palethorpe had turned toward the entrance. He made a grab for the knife in Josie’s shoulder, but before he even reached it, his hand dropped limply to his side. His mouth and eyes widened in surprise and agony, he made a gurgling sound, then fell to the ground in a heap.

Behind him stood a red-clad woman holding a thin sword covered in blood. She glowered down at the dead Palethorpe. Josie wondered for a split second who had conjured a demon of pure fury up from hell. Then she recognised the woman.

“C-cap…”

“Quiet, Josephine,” said Captain Glass, sounding just like always, like she was telling a rowdy messenger to go to bed and leave her alone. Like she hadn’t just killed a man. Was this real? Josie wasn’t sure. Everything was so blurry now. Maybe the pain was making her imagine things. Maybe she was already dead and this was a spirit coming to take her soul to the afterlife, in the guise of the one person whose orders she would be sure to follow without question. That must be it because no way had the Captain, who could buy someone like Josie anytime she wished, just risked her life to save her. Hadn’t Palethorpe said... 

Josie’s lids felt so heavy now, she could barely keep them open. The pain was still there, but she barely had the energy to feel it. The last thing she felt were strong arms, picking her off the tunnel floor.

\---------------------------------------

“Hey, I think she moved!”

“Joss! Wake up!”

Who was Joss? And whose voices were those? She recognised them from somewhere.

“Joss! Josephine! JOSIE! COME ON!”

Oh right, ‘Joss’ - that was her, wasn’t it? She would never get used to that nickname. And those were the voices of Ruff and Becks. And was that Prue back there? 

She wasn’t dead then? Or were all of the others dead, too? 

When Josie heard her name, she tried to open her eyes, but her lids were like lead. She tried to tell whoever was shouting ‘Josie’ that she was awake, but her tongue didn’t obey her either. Exhausted she sank back into a deep sleep.

\---------------------------------------

When she woke up again, she found she could open her eyes now. The moment she did, she was greeted with the sight of an unfamiliar, small room, which was currently holding an unreasonable number of red-clad figures.

A groan escaped Josie’s mouth.

Immediately, she was surrounded by as many people as could fit around her bed, all babbling at once so she couldn’t make out a single word. It was giving her a headache.

Fortunately one voice rose above the din, coming to her rescue: “Children! Back off and give Josephine some space! She has been through a lot.”

The noise slowly faded to a pleasant murmur. It reminded Josie of the trees down in the Greens when the wind blew through their leaves.

“Wha-” Josie started, but noticed her voice was all weak from lack of use. She cleared her throat and tried again: “What happened?”

“I reached you just in time to save you from Palethorpe.” The Captain spat the name like an insult. “Fortunately he’s been dealt with.”

“But how did you know…”

The twins shoved their way to Josie’s bedside.

“We were right behind you, you see, but then you were suddenly gone,” started Ruff.

“So we thought you’d just found a really good short-cut,” continued Becks.

“But we got to the main road,” said Ruff at the same time as Becks said “We met Mary.”

They turned to each other going: “You tell it then if you know better!”

“You can both be quiet,” said the captain calmly, making them shut up in an instant. 

“What happened, Josephine, is that I was having a perfectly calm night, when I was suddenly accosted, in my bed, by an entire battalion of messengers telling me you had gotten injured in a race and then been dragged off by Palethorpe and Lisney,” the Captain looked around the room. The Runners whose gaze she met squirmed guiltily. Josie, too, would have squirmed, but she could barely move.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered.

“You should be. You all should be. I do not make up rules for the sake of it. If I tell you not to do something, I have my reasons. And at the very least I would have hoped you all had the sense to tell me if you encountered any danger.”

As she said these words, she turned to Gertie, who turned as red as the uniform she was wearing and quickly hid behind the twins.

“Your foolishness may well have caused your death, Josephine. If it hadn’t been for Mary here,” the Captain pointed behind her, where Josie now saw a small green figure among all the reds and recognised the girl who’d beaten her in the race, “telling me where Palethorpe’s hideout was, you would have. As it was, I arrived only just in time.”

“It was amazing,” Isaac burst out. “The Captain just marched in there and bashed Lisney over the head with her cane and then when she saw Palethorpe, she pulled a sword out of the fucking cane and POW!” Isaac mimicked the captain stabbing Josie’s would-be murderer. 

“That is quite enough, Isaac,” said Captain Glass, but there was a hint of amusement in her voice. It faded fast, however, when she looked down at Josie: “I wish I could have avoided that.”

“I’m sorry,” said Josie again.

“You’ve been punished quite enough,” answered the captain. “You are a mess, Josephine. It will take weeks for your injuries to heal.”

Josie only realised now that her one arm was in a thick cast, while lengths of bandage were wrapped around the other. A dull, throbbing ache was coursing through her body.

With a jolt, Josie realised, she wouldn’t be able to work. She wouldn’t be able to earn her keep! And surely whoever had stitched her up would demand a fortune! What was she going to do?

But the captain seemed to read her thoughts off her face: “You are very fortunate. The cuts did not damage anything that couldn’t be fixed. You’ll have a few scars to show for it, nothing more. You broke an ankle and your elbow, but the doctor says the injuries are not complicated. Once they heal, you will be as good as new. Until then you will just have to rest. I intend to pay the doctor’s fee out of your fellows’ wages, of course. They share the responsibility for this.”

To Josie’s surprise, not a single person complained about this announcement. Even Isaac looked only a little grumpy.

“I will also make sure to schedule someone as a nursemaid at all times once the doctor says you can be moved.”

“Ooh, ooh, can I be first?” Prue piped up.

“No, me!” Gertie yelled. “I can take care of her. I’ll make her chicken soup! Well, if someone else buys the chicken. I don’t have the cash.”

A few people chuckled.

“When can she leave anyway? Did the doctor say?”

“Yeah, when can we take Josie home?” asked Becks. Josie noticed with surprise that she hadn’t called her ‘Joss’.

“The doctor said he wants to keep her here for another day or two, then we can take her home with us.”

The crowd behind the captain cheered so loudly that the doctor popped his head in the door: “Please, Captain Glass, keep your people quiet. I have patients who need rest!”

“Quiet, children.”

“Did you hear, Josie?” Ruff asked, bending down so he could whisper in her ear. “You’re going home in a day or two!”

“Sure I heard, I broke my limbs, not my ears,” Josie croaked, but she was smiling. She was alive. And she was going home.


End file.
